Annals of the Transvaal Museum 
17 
In this table I have included all the records known to me, whatever 
my opinion of their value, unless in any instance it could be shown that 
two recorded names were synonyms. The species of doubtful identity 
are indicated by an asterisk (*). 
The list contains 71 species, a very considerable number, when we 
consider that Bryce as recently as November, 1^10 (5), admitted only 105 
species of Bdelloids for the whole world. However, some 15 new African 
species have been described since that date. 
If we deduct the doubtful species, which may of course possibly be 
repeated in the list, there are sixty-one well authenticated African species. 
These are distributed in the different localities as follows Egypt seven 
species, Sahara two, Senegal one, Calabar four, British East Africa thirty-five, 
German East Africa eight, Congo Free State one, Mozambique one, 
Rhodesia one, Transvaal twenty-eight, Natal seven, and Cape Colony 
thirty-nine. 
Eighteen species, about quarter of the total, are only known in 
Africa ; five of them are confined to North Africa (Egypt), one to West 
Africa (Senegal), four to East Africa, and six to South Africa. Thirty 
species are common to Central and South Africa, but only two of these 
are among the species peculiar to Africa. Of course with advancing 
knowledge these limitations are not likely to remain long. 
There are only three of the districts about the moss-faunas of which 
we know much, and they all have very fair lists of species — British East 
Africa thirty-five, Transvaal twenty-eight, Cape Colony thirty-eight. 
The moss-dwellers, in fact, form the great bulk of the Bdelloida — at least 
fifty of them are in our African list. 
In the islands adjacent to the African continent a few species have 
been recorded— Lor the Azores, by Barrois, 1888 (1) ; the Canaries, by 
Heinis, 1908 (13) ; Madagascar, by Voeltzkow, 1891 (37), and Murray, 1908 
(26); the Comoro Islands by Richters, 1908 (29). Among these there 
are only two species which are not known on the continent, Mniobia 
■symbiotica in the Canaries, and Habrotrocha crenata, variety nodosa (now 
regarded as a distinct species), in Madagascar. 
The general distribution of the African Bdelloids over the world is 
not indicated. The published facts are scarcely sufficient to make this 
of any value. It may be said in a general way that about forty of the 
African species are common, and fairly widely distributed, though only 
a few can be described as cosmopolitan. 
The other thirty seem to be rare or local, as far as our present knowledge 
goes — eighteen of them, as already stated, being only known in Africa. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
Throughout the text, figures in heavy type , enclosed in brackets, 
refer to the numbers in this list. 
1. Barrois, Th. — Faune des Eaux douees des Azores. Lille, 1888. 
2. Barrois and Daday.— Rotifera de Syrie. Rev. biol. du Nord de la France, p. 391. 
1894. 
3. Bryce, D. — On the Macrotrachelous Callidinae. Jour. Quekett Micr. Club, p. 15. 1892. 
4. Bryce, D. — Further Notes on Macrotraohelous Callidinae. Jour. Quekett Micr. Club, 
p. 436. 1894. 
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